But now there are so many more, with ripping teeth and rasping claws…
I close my eyes. “They weren’t trying to be here. They’re confused. It isn’t their fault.”
The man snorts. “Right. Not their fault they’re tearing apart a whole city.”
Part of me wants to argue with him. Part of me knows he understands what’s happening far less than even I do.
But from that place deep inside me, a quiver of uncertainty rises up.
How could somethingthisbad happen just by accident?
There’ve always been shadowkind who preyed on the mortal world, even if it wasn’t most of them. Are we making excuses and giving the benefit of the doubt when we really should be treating this disaster as a declaration of war?
7
Periwinkle
Rollick paces back and forth at the head of the table as if he isn’t sure where he wants to stand. I’d suggest to him that he shouldn’t worry about it because it doesn’t really make a difference, but he finally makes up his mind and spins toward all of us gathered in the trailer meeting room.
The gathering is a swarm now. He hasn’t included the random higher shadowkind who tumbled out along the fringes of the warped rift, even though several of them helped us finish evacuating the city, but the trailer is still packed.
Alongside me and my team, Sorsha and her men, and the shadowbloods are a couple of the academy’s administrators and many of the level 4 and 5 students, plus some lower level students whose problems I guess were more about hiding their true nature than risk of them doing harm. Fen and Brine have squished in next to me, Fen periodically squeezing my arm. I’mnot sure if it’s more for her reassurance or mine, given the sprinkling of nervous water that often dampens her palm.
There’s no point in trying to hide our presence here at the rift now. The cat’s out of the bag about us being inhuman with the military folks and many of the refugees. Making sure the weirdo rift’s flood doesn’t spread any farther than it already has is the most important thing.
I can sense various other beings watching from the shadows to avoid cramming us even more tightly in the enclosed space. I think they’re Rollick’s assistants and various other associates who are used to doing his bidding without much of a say.
“Well,” Rollick says. “The good news is that this is the only place in the mortal realm where the shadows have collided with an area of high human occupation. The bad news is theyhavecollided with the mortal realm in several other locations.”
My heart skips a beat. “The other strange rifts?”
He nods. “All of them expanded and collapsed over the surrounding terrain much the same way ours here has. I’m getting reports from the beings I had monitoring the other rifts. Thankfully the humans nearby have been smart enough not to go diving in where they obviously have no business going, but my people are having trouble holding back the deluge of new creatures emerging. I’ve sent the other administrators from the academy to pitch in along with various helpers, but it’s a difficult business.”
Riva frowns, twisting the end of her silvery braid around her finger. “Do they need more people pitching in? We shadowbloods could split up again?—”
Before she can finish her offer, Rollick cuts her off with a raised hand. “The situation here is by far the most urgent. We’ve got mortals with large guns prowling all around the camps. Tens of thousands of humans getting at least a glimpse of shadowkind.”
He sighs and rubs his forehead. My stomach twists like it’s trying out for a gymnastics team.
The demon is thousands of years old. To see even him this taken aback by the catastrophe here… Are there words for something even more dire than a catastrophe?
And what do you do to de-catastrophize it?
Sorsha’s partner who sometimes turns into a magma-laced hellhound clears his throat, his expression even grimmer than Rollick’s. “Have the Highest had anything to say about the… incident?”
The Highest—the immense, ancient beings who hold a vague authority in the shadow realm and over shadowkind who venture mortal-side. At the thought of them, a fresh chill sweeps over my skin.
I hadn’t even considered their perspective. I’ve never encountered any of them myself. But from the murmurs I’ve heard over the years, they get a bee up their butts about shadowkind catching human attention.
It’s not as if it was our idea for a messed-up rift to bellyflop all over a city. Will that matter to them?
Rollick shakes his head, provoking a flutter of relief in both me and the various beings around me. “Not much. They’ve been notified, of course, but I think the news is so bizarre they’re more concerned about their own safety than anything else. The last I heard, they’re hiding even deeper in the depths of the shadow realm to avoid any strangeness from these rifts, demanding the rest of us keep control over the situation however we can.”
“We have made some progress there,” Sorsha points out with her usual optimism, but I can’t help noticing the furrows in her forehead too. “At least the soldiers aren’t opening fire willy-nilly anymore.”
“Yes. We’re being riddled with fewer bullets than we were yesterday. And we’ve gotten all the humans we could locate out of the city. Let’s celebrate the wins we have.”
Rollick’s chuckle doesn’t sound particularly celebratory. He holds his emotions close, but I’m still picking up a vibe of uneasy frustration as unpalatable as days-old black coffee.
